SHORT STORIES
FIND ME
André Aciman
Aciman returns
to the world of his
2007 novel Call Me
by Your Name to
see how time has
changed Elio, Oliver
and other beloved
characters.
THE MAN
WHO SAW
EVERYTHING
Deborah Levy
Narcissist Saul must
consider what it
means that he was
hit by a car twice—in
1988 and 2016—at
the same crosswalk.
NORMAL
PEOPLE
Sally Rooney
In Rooney’s second
millennial love story,
a couple struggles to
stay together as the
control in the rela-
tionship shifts from
one to the other.
REALISTIC FICTION / FEWER THAN 300 PAGES
108 Time December 2–9, 2019
FICTION
EVERYTHING
INSIDE
Edwidge Danticat
The Haitian-American
writer offers exquisite
ruminations on the
power of place.
Whether the charac-
ters in the collection
are leaving, returning
or reminiscing about
home, their stories
capture what it
means to belong to a
singular world.
EXHALATION
Ted Chiang
Nine stories of
refined, accessible
prose prove both
poignant and
disturbing as Chiang
mines subject matter
like time travel and
artificial intelligence.
The acclaimed
science-fiction
writer showcases an
unnerving ability to
conjure dark futures.
SING TO IT
Amy Hempel
Stories ranging from
one to 60 pages,
populated by a variety
of characters—from
a volunteer at a dog
shelter to a wife
reflecting on her
fractured marriage—
show Hempel, one
of the greats of the
form, straddling the
line between humor
and sadness.
LOT
Bryan
Washington
In his insightful
debut collection,
Washington
demonstrates the
depth and dynamism
of his native Houston,
a city that embodies
many of the subjects
lying at the center of
contentious national
debate: diversity,
borders and identity.
ALL THIS COULD
BE YOURS
Jami Attenberg
A portrait of the love,
and mess, that inevita-
bly accompanies family
life, Attenberg’s latest
depicts the many trou-
bled Tuchmans as they
face their patriarch’s
imminent death.
DOXOLOGY
Nell Zink
Zink plays the role of a
hipster Tolstoy, weav-
ing the war on terror,
climate change and
the disorientation of
the 2016 presidential
election into the lives
of three generations of
a fractured family.
DUCKS,
NEWBURYPORT
Lucy Ellmann
A thousand pages
composed mostly of a
single run-on sentence,
Ellmann’s strangely
addicting stream-of-
consciousness narra-
tive drops into the mind
of an Ohio mother.
PATSY
Nicole Dennis-Benn
Dennis-Benn observes
how a woman’s
identity —female, black,
queer—can inform her
status in different ways
depending on the con-
text. Her story follows a
Jamaican mother who
chases love and a bet-
ter life to the U.S., only
to find new struggles.
THE OTHER
AMERICANS
Laila Lalami
The Pulitzer Prize final-
ist weaves together the
voices of nine different
narrators as she
unfolds the mysterious
hit-and-run killing of
Driss Guerraoui, an
elderly Moroccan immi-
grant in a small Mojave
Desert town.
OLIVE, AGAIN
Elizabeth Strout
The cranky retired
math teacher from
Strout’s Pulitzer Prize–
winning novel makes a
triumphant return in 13
interlinked stories set
in small-town Maine,
where Olive Kitteridge
offers unsolicited
advice and faces the
indignities of old age.